Samsung releases first Tizen phone

The company is hedging its bet on Android by launching the Samsung Z, the first smartphone running Tizen, a mobile operating system developed by Samsung, Intel and the Linux Foundation.

Mashable wrote a solid review of the phone here. The phone is basically a Galaxy 5 on the outside and Tizen on the inside and will first be available in Russia. The phone seems to perform well but the primary issue with Tizen is the lack of a mobile app ecosystem. Currently, the operating system heavily leans on HTML5 web applications but is offering 100% revenue to app developers in the first year to grow.

Sprint close to buying T-Mobile

The consolidation continues.

Sprint (3rd-largest mobile carrier in the U.S.) is close to purchasing T-Mobile (4th) for $32 billion in a deal that would help the companies better compete with Verizon (1st) and AT&T (2nd). T-Mobile has been an acquisition target for a while now, bouncing back and forth between AT&T and Sprint.

The reason for the deal extends further than just mobile market share. The purchase of DirecTV by AT&T and Time Warner Cable by Comcast gives those companies, along with Verizon, a much broader telecommunications portfolio, including landline, Internet and business services. The merger between Sprint and T-Mobile could give the combined entity the resources to expand and compete.